Essentially a category page is a transit point, a fleeting stop between arrival and destination. Its purpose is to send the visitor to the right product pages as quickly and effortlessly as possible. That fleetingness of user engagement is often an excuse to not pay too much attention to the layout and functionality of a category page.

My two latest blog posts are essentially rants. On State of Search I rant about the often-bandied “you shouldn’t rely purely on Google for your traffic” argument which I think is invalid:

There is no avoiding Google. It dominates the online realm in Europe and the UK. A business that wants to succeed online has no other choice but to find a way to be visible on Google’s search engine results. It’s all well and good preaching about diversity in customer sources, but when your entire marketplace is owned by Google you sort of have to play their game.

And on Search News Central I rant about Google’s latest excuse in defence of its manipulative practices – a report stating that their SERPs are protected under the USA’s First Amendment:

So in effect this research is Google’s ‘get out of jail free’ card, giving them free reign to do whatever they want with their search results, including putting their own properties first and generally abusing their SERPs in any way imaginable to give themselves an advantage and deny suppliers of competing services appropriate visibility in Google’s search results.